{ Monthly Archives } November 2010

Driving home on Friday night, going up the hill in the dark, I suddenly heard a very loud and scary bang. Funnily enough, I could better relate the so-called “five stages of grief” to my thought processes then, than I can to the bigger things going on in my life. denial – it was only […]

I’ve been lent a book by Kubler-Ross and Kessler called “On Grief and Grieving” which is apparently one of the standard texts in Bereavement Counselling. Their basic thesis is that there are five stages of grief Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance Apparently people are expected to go through all five stages of grief so that […]

Imagine the following scenario: Someone who is highly allergic to feathers books a short break at a comfortable but idiosyncratic hotel, making sure to specify “no feather pillows or bedding” on the booking. On arrival they check the pillow and duvet. Hmmm, seem to be microfibre. That’s ok. Off they go to a birthday dinner […]

Chris didn’t come from the sort of family who had £43M Chinese vases sitting on the bookcase, but he did have a few things belonging to his grandmothers which he strongly believed should be kept in the family. Indeed, he explicitly left them to his sister in his Will. So today I met up with […]

21 11 2010GilliancancerComments Off on Passing on the family heirlooms

I think Christopher’s stepfather must have been clearing out his attic recently, as he has just kindly sent me a bundle of letters which Christopher wrote home to his mother when he was up at Oxford. That was in the early ’80s – years before I knew him, and in fact while I was still […]

Christopher’s tax affairs really ought to be straight forward. There is no inheritance tax to pay, as he left almost everything to me. If anything, he should be due a small income tax rebate for this current tax year – the pittance of interest earned on his savings was well below the tax threshold, but […]

Chris was a keen archer when I first met him. He had shot for his University and was a member of the local archery club. Although his interest waned in recent years he still had all of his archery equipment, which in its day was good-quality stuff. His Will was really very simple, leaving almost […]